


a comma in a full stop's place

by sympathy_for_hordak (sparrow0)



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Atheist Ritual, Background Relationships, Entrapdak Secret Santa, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fluff, Judaism, Post-Canon, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21939139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow0/pseuds/sympathy_for_hordak
Summary: Entrapta and Hordak return to Etheria to celebrate Harvest Night, a few months after Horde Prime is defeated.This is a gift for tumblr user netherooze. Happy Entrapdak Secret Santa 2019!
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	a comma in a full stop's place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [netherooze (Raelien)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raelien/gifts).



Entrapta blinked at her screen, then turned her chair to face Hordak. Through the windshield of their spaceship, thousands of stars sparkled behind her. 

"What has happened?" Hordak asked, concerned. 

"Frosta is hosting the Princess Alliance for Harvest Night, and we're invited," Entrapta said. 

"I can help you phrase a missive in which we send our regrets." 

"No, I think it'll be fun."

"What are you talking about? Etherian worship of the First Ones has always been utter foolishness. You can't really want to freeze your skin off to honor long-dead beings you know full well made your world into a weapon." Hordak had gotten out of his chair and gestured angrily. 

Entrapta shook her head, looking up at him. "I know none of the tales are accurate. I'm not invoking the literal First Ones. I'm invoking the synthetic mental construct Etherians have turned to for generations. When we do the rituals, we're singing together, and we're listening to each other, and we're connected to those who have sung before and will sing after. The First Ones of the Etherian holidays don't exist, and they never did, but they're a useful fiction." 

Hordak frowned at her, lost. 

"Okay, an example. You were on Etheria a long time; you've heard the Song of Beginnings?" 

"Of course," Hordak answered. 

"It's a way to acknowledge joyous occasions. People sing it when they begin a holiday ritual, and for weddings and baby namings. It's also sung when people get what they hope for - when they make new friends, reunite with loved ones, recover from illnesses, take new names, things like that." Entrapta smiled up at him, soft and fond. 

Hordak was still frowning. "It's not about prostrating yourself before some superior being and humbly offering thanks for your pitiful existence?"

"I mean, it might be sometimes, it's really old and it got sung in lots of ways by lots of people. But for me, for Dryl, there's nothing remotely humble or pitiful about it. We're alive! We made it here! We get to do this cool thing! Yay!" Entrapta spun in her chair. 

"Very well. Inform Princess Frosta that we accept her generous invitation. How long do we have? What preparation is required?" Hordak asked.

"We need to get you stuff to wear, and we need to design our structure."

"We do? I have acceptable warm clothes," Hordak said. 

"Oh, Hordak, you absolutely do not," Entrapta said gently. "You have style, not gear. You dress us far better than I could at every diplomatic function. All your stuff is designed to flatter you, to make you look ethereal, powerful, stunning, or all of the above. That sort of attire could seriously injure you outdoors overnight, in the dead of winter, in the Kingdom of Snows. We're going to Tannenbaum, and I'm not bringing you out on Etheria in fewer than three pairs of pants."

Hordak nodded grimly. "I defer to your judgement in this."

  
  
  


Hordak clenched his jaw as they landed. Everything in the docking bay around their ship was striped green and red, and Tannenbaum's welcome message blared merrily from the shipyard speakers. "I am - glad Tannenbaum has renamed itself in the aftermath of Prime's fall," Hordak said carefully. "I respect their commitment to their particular aesthetic. They get to choose their own path, and Tannenbaum chose - this." 

"Yeah, I know," Entrapta said, "but the quality of their equipment is worth it. We've got communicators and hearing protection, if it gets to be too much." She lowered the ramp, and the cheerful music got louder. 

Hordak turned to her, face drawn. "Help," he mouthed, barely audible to himself against the jingling bells. 

Entrapta handed him a pair of noise-cancelling earpieces, and he fit them in. 

_sorry about this. it's not that bad for me - maybe because I've been in enough explosions,_ Entrapta messaged. 

_that's a relief. don't force yourself to do this on my behalf,_ Hordak responded.

 _of course not. I got this, lab partner,_ Entrapta sent. 

  
  
  


"I'm going to look ridiculous," Hordak moaned as they left the merriest planet in the universe; garish packages heaped in their cargo bay. 

"Yeah, but you'll be warm and safe, and we're going to build a symbolic shelter!" Entrapta said. "Most people build theirs with kits, but that's so boring." 

"If we get to go indoors, does that mean I'll only need most of this stuff for the construction process?" Hordak asked hopefully. 

"Nah, the constraints don't allow for that!" Entrapta declared. "We have to be able to see the moons and feel the winds through the walls and the roof. We're meant to remind ourselves of the impermanence of our homes and the beauty of the natural world. We can put heat sources inside it, but the shelter is not particularly functional." 

"I suppose it's still a new project, with you, for no purpose but our entertainment," Hordak said. 

"I take it 'showing off' is implicit in 'our entertainment?'" Entrapta asked, grinning. 

"Absolutely," Hordak said, putting an arm around her shoulders. 

  
  
  


_At least it's all red and black_ , Hordak thought grumpily as he began to prepare to leave the ship.

Hordak tucked the fleece leggings into the second pair of socks. He pulled on the insulated pants, the huge boots, and the thick overalls. He tugged the tight-fitting cowl over his head, then wrapped the scarf around his neck. He zipped the shapeless, puffy inner coat, and the puffier, even more shapeless outer coat. He pulled up the hood, tugging it over the cowl. Finally, he pushed his claws into the enormous, thick gloves. 

Hordak looked into the mirror and groaned. "This is absurd. I look like an overripe, misshapen gourd." 

Entrapta dropped behind him from the ceiling, resting a tendril of her hair on his shoulder. "What does that make me, then?" she asked. "I'm wearing just as many layers as you."

"You are always radiant, Entrapta. Your sartorial choices change nothing. Mine, however..." Hordak trailed off. 

"You look great, and this way you'll be warm and cozy," Entrapta said, taking his gloved hand in hers. "Let's go." 

They walked out into the morning together. 

All of Princess Frosta's guests looked equally silly. Even Catra had been forced into an enormous, fluffy parka. Hers was pink, which probably meant it was Glimmer's fault. 

"Welcome, everyone!" Frosta announced. "You can pick a building site anywhere from the castle to the edge of the forest, but try to spread out so we're not on top of each other too much." 

Hordak and Entrapta nodded, and started walking. 

To Hordak, the air tasted as unpleasant it had in every other forsaken, frozen place, but his ears didn't hurt. The freezing wind stung his cheeks, but his armor stayed warm, not painful against his skin. Fascinated, he bent down and touched the snow with one extremely unfashionable glove. He could feel the weight of it, but his fingers were warm and dry. 

Hordak grabbed a fistful of snow, watching it sparkle in the sun. He had always detested snow and icy weather. On many occasions, he had been cold enough to burn and then go numb, and he had marched without pause across whatever miserable world he'd been sent to. There would be no marches here, Hordak wore no uniform, and he was defenseless, bent down on an open plain like this. Hordak squished more of the stuff in his warm, painless hands, enjoying the way the light shone off the snow. 

Entrapta stopped and knelt beside him, gathering and compressing snow in her hands. 

"Who are we aiming for?" she asked softly. 

"What?" 

"You're making a snowball; logically, you're planning to start a snowball fight. Who do you want to attack first?"

Hordak thought for a moment, pressing the snow into a sphere. "Did you see which way Catra went?" 

Entrapta lifted herself up on her hair, looking. Hordak tossed his snowball at Entrapta's back and ran. 

Entrapta laughed and gave chase. 

In moments, she'd wrapped her hair around his torso. Hordak let her drag him into a sort of half-bow, pushing their foreheads together. "You tricked me," she said, smiling. "Well done. Come, let's find higher ground to build on." 

  
  
  


Hordak and Entrapta picked a spot at the top of a small hill. They dragged their components and equipment out of the spaceship and began to set up, comparing the space to the measurements on their plans. 

Catra stormed up the hill to them, her mouth a thin line. "Glimmer and Adora are the worst," she said. 

"Really?" Hordak asked. 

"No, obviously," Catra snapped. "If they were the worst, I wouldn't be trying to build a useless failure shelter with them and I wouldn't care about their latest argument." She sprawled across a group of boxes. "Ughhhhhh." 

"Sorry, I need access to this one," Entrapta said, using a tendril to scoot Catra over. 

Entrapta grabbed a whirring tool from the box, and began to fasten together the welded metal triangles Hordak was placing on the ground. 

They worked silently for a few minutes, Catra's tail twitching in irritation. 

Catra said, "We could have gone to the Crimson Waste. This kingdom sucks, and this holiday sucks even more." 

"Other people can help you! That's within the specifications," Entrapta said. 

Catra said nothing, and Entrapta secured more of the bottom edge of their structure. 

"I hate it when they don't get along," Catra said finally. "It's not like the way we build this thing matters."

Hordak set down an armload of parts and sat beside Catra. "Why do you think I so resolutely avoided meetings?" he asked. "Trivial disputes provoke everyone's wrath. Bare your fangs, appoint Glimmer the commander for this mission, as she's done it before, and have Adora command the next one."

Catra stood and granted Hordak a small, uncertain smile. "Yes, Lord Hordak," she said, half-serious, smiling as she walked off. 

  
  


Over the next several hours, Hordak and Entrapta assembled a hemisphere out of triangles of strong, lightweight metal. It was more than wide enough to accommodate cooking and sleeping areas, and tall enough that Entrapta could hang from the top piece by her hair tendrils and just barely brush the toes of her boots against the ground. 

Their first phase completed, they began applying grippy, reflective decals to the dome, making it more visually interesting, and safer for beings without Entrapta's particular skills to climb. 

They were interrupted again, as Hordak was setting up a generator to power the geodesic dome's lights, and Entrapta was beginning to unspool and attach the first strand. 

"Oh, thank the First Ones, it's quiet up here!" Mermista announced. "Sea Hawk's teaching shanties, and I don't want to ruin their fun, I just - need a break. Do you need extra hands? Do you want icicles on this? I'm good at icicles." 

Hordak went still. "You want to make us icicles? I conquered your kingdom." 

"Yes but it's almost Harvest Night and you're not singing. Honestly, your look got a lot less terrible once I knew what kind of raw material you had to work with. I want to know your most important secret: how do you do your eyes?"

Slowly, from the front, Mermista elbowed Hordak, giving him more than enough opportunity to stop her. "Come on, spill," she said, looking up at him. 

Entrapta only half-paid attention as Hordak explained his routine, elaborating where Mermista asked for more detail. Entrapta was focused on optimally arranging every red and violet diode, making sure each one glowed softly and evenly, without a single flicker. 

"Hey, Entrapta," Mermista called. "Did you know all your boyfriend's beauty products are made by members of the Salineas Royal Society of Chemists? Gentlest, longest wearing, best black eyeliner in a dozen galaxies is a huge deal. Can I tell them?" 

Hordak looked off into the distance, frowning. "You must be very careful with this dark knowledge of my terrible past," he said. 

"Uh. What?" Mermista blinked. 

There was a moment of tense silence. 

Entrapta broke it, cacking. "Oh, Mermista, the look on your face." She swung over to Hordak, dangling from the dome. "And you! I love that you can joke about it." 

Hordak bowed, and Entrapta kissed his cheek as he rose. 

"Huh," Mermista said. "I guess you geeks aren't as uncool as I thought." 

"Noted," Hordak replied. "And, if you think the Royal Society would want to know, we could tell them."

"Sure, let's do it with an audience. Their annual industry conference is every summer; I'll send you tickets. We can work out a secret plan," Mermista offered. 

Entrapta rested a tendril on Mermista's shoulder, clapping her hands. "Yes! he's spectacular at those. I can't wait." 

  
  
  


Entrapta and Hordak finished building their structure a few hours before sundown. Its curves gleamed in the cold, harsh sunlight and the glare off the snow. 

The lights were carefully arranged across it, reflecting off of Mermista's icicles and the metal. Their cooking and sleeping areas were tidily set set up within. Everything was in its place, where it belonged, and arranged to their satisfaction. 

They both hesitated, silently adjusting little details. 

Finally, Entrapta squared her shoulders and spoke. "Let's go see if any of them want any help from us. It'll probably be fine, right? It'll be fine. We can do this." 

"We can," Hordak echoed. "They may not desire our assistance and that is acceptable. We are capable of retreating." 

She took his hand and they walked down their hill side by side. 

  
  
  


The snowy plain was dotted with finished sheds, most built from basic kits and decorated with traditional ribbons, lights, and tree branches. Most people seem to have wandered over to the big bonfire near the castle, leaving their structures empty. 

Glimmer and Catra were leaning against Adora, sitting beside a shed decorated in pink and gold. As Hordak and Entrapta approached, Adora jumped to her feet and then paused, as though she didn't know whether to wave, salute, or ignore them. 

Entrapta waved. "Hi Princesses! Your structure looks great!" 

"Hi, Entrapta," Adora said. She looked at Hordak and stopped. 

"Hi, Adora," Hordak said, trying to sound friendly and non-threatening. "A joyous Harvest Night to you. Your structure is indeed well-assembled and aesthetically acceptable." 

"Thanks," she said. "Yours is cool, too, it's very, uh, round. Good Harvest Night to you both." 

They nodded at each other, and Entrapta and Hordak moved onward. 

  
  
  


Scorpia approached, raised a claw as if to salute, and stopped. She turned as if to move away. 

Behind her, Perfuma said, "No! You said you would ask." 

"Fine," Scorpia said. "Okay. We haven't finished. Every other time she's done this, Perfuma has been able to use her plant magic, but this year with the claws and the ice and the snow, um. It's Frosta's turn to use her powers and our turn to struggle, I guess. Sorry to bother you. I don't want to interrupt, or anything." 

Entrapta nodded. "Of course we'll help!" 

"Where are your plans?" Hordak asked. 

Scorpia and Perfuma looked at each other. "Um," said Scorpia. 

"That's fine, don't worry about it! I've seen this sort of kit before, ooh, what's that?" Entrapta asked, grabbing a glowing rectangle near the rest of Scorpia and Perfuma's stuff. 

There's a familiar, delighted beep, and a chittering sound. 

"Hi Emily! Hi Imp! Where's this video stream going?" Entrapta asked. More beeps. "Oh, cool! I'm glad you're staying warm and having fun! Here, say hi to Hordak!" She hands him the tablet. 

"Hi to Hordak!" Imp replayed. 

"Hi, Imp," he answered. "Hi, Emily. Good Harvest Night to you both." 

"Good Harvest Night!" Imp echoed, smiling. 

"Let's anchor that here," Entrapta said, securing the tablet on some crates so that Imp and Emily could watch them work. She began anchoring the main support beams to the ground, driving stakes through the snow and frozen dirt. 

A few minutes later, Hordak and Entrapta had properly assembled the shed. They spoke with Imp and Emily while Perfuma sat on Scorpia's shoulders and decorated, winding delicate dried vines and flowers through the open bars. 

  
  
  


The four of them moved on, to the one structure much larger and taller than anyone else's. Even in daylight, it shone, almost like a cathedral, arcing towards the sky. There was not an inch of wiring anywhere on this thing; it glowed with magical light. The whole tower was gorgeously intricate ice, like lace, strengthened and illuminated with magic. 

Frosta was visibly delighted with herself. Micah and Angella were standing with her. 

Entrapta asked, "You did all this together?" 

"Oh, it's so much better being in charge! This is going to be the best Harvest Night ever, it's way better getting to do it on my own turf and actually use my powers and not just sit around watching boring older people flirt and argue with each other," Frosta declared. 

Micah put a hand on Frosta's shoulder. "Princess Frosta did almost all of it, Angie and I just followed her instructions." 

"I am pleased we are not yet too boring for you," Angella said. "That day is coming, but for now, it is truly an honor to be here." 

"Yeah," Entrapta said, "thank you for organizing this and inviting us, Princess Frosta. A good Harvest Night to you all." 

"Thank you for participating," Frosta answered. "A good Harvest Night to you as well. It's nearly sundown, we should join the others near the bonfire." 

  
  
  


When their little group walked over to the fire, George and Lance were leading everyone in a folk song. When they stopped, Frosta handed out booklets of the ritual songs. 

Entrapta's voice broke on the first line of the Song of Beginnings, and Hordak put his arm around her and sang for them both until she could start again. 

  
  
  


After the rituals, after they gently declined Sea Hawk's offer to learn shanties, Entrapta and Hordak built their own tiny fire in their structure, and heated water over it to prepare dehydrated food. 

  
  


Hordak had a moment where he was shaken by the distance between this and the times he had camped in snow before, among his brothers. This was so very unlike huddling outside in a dark, inadequate shelter and a flimsy uniform, eating extremely similar dehydrated food, without this feeling of glowing warmth and affection. 

He felt a rush of gratitude for what the booklet called "the impermanence of our homes." The opportunity to build new homes with new allies was brilliant, his first home had been - suboptimal. 

Hordak briefly contemplated Entrapta's comments about "when they get what they hope for, like naming themselves or making new friends." It made sense that the expressive, sentimental Etherians had a song for hopes fulfilled, they were worth singing about. 

  
  
  


Entrapta watched Hordak heat water and think, and thought herself about having constructed all her previous Harvest Sheds alone with her bots, up on the walls of the castle. It was so different and so delightful to make stuff with people she cared about. 

  
  
  


After they ate, as they watched the sky grow dark and the stars come out, Hordak and Entrapta zipped their sleeping bags together. 

They fell asleep embracing each other and watching the stars. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Wishes I used:**  
>  1) Hordak misinterprets an Etherian holiday tradition  
> 2) Hordak normally detests snow, but Entrapta makes it tolerable 
> 
> **References:**  
>  I read "misinterprets a holiday tradition" and my mind latched onto shehecheyanu for transition milestones, dug in its claws, and refused to move. As a result, I feel like this is about 500% more Jewish than the giftee probably expected. I hope that's not a problem. 
> 
> The misshapen gourd situation/snow tolerance bit was made possible by Blair Braverman's column for _Outside_ , particularly [this one](https://www.outsideonline.com/2280406/tough-love-rut) about going outside in winter and [this one](https://www.outsideonline.com/2357776/things-blair-braverman-doesnt-hate) about winter gear.
> 
> Etherian Harvest Night "shelters" vaguely resemble sukkahs, because I wanted these nerds to have something to over-engineer. For Hordak and Entrapta, it's a low-stakes, cute project. For Catra, it's like assembling unusable IKEA furniture outside in the snow. The things her princesses get her into, seriously. 
> 
> Here are [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome) and [Costco](https://www.costco.com/lifetime-geometric-dome-climber.product.100080566.html) references for geodesic domes, if that's an unfamiliar concept. The one in this fic is bigger than the Costco children's toy one, but much smaller than the permanent structures in the Wikipedia article.


End file.
